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Derek
Derek (also known as Derek! and Derek 2 in Series 6) was a competitor in Series 5 and 6 of Robot Wars. It was knocked in the first round in both of its appearances. In Series 5, Derek! surprised many by winning the award for the Best Engineered robot that year, beating out robots which advanced further into the competition, including Dominator 2 who defeated it in the competition. Design Derek's chassis was made of aluminium billet, and each piece was professionally milled using a CNC lathe. For Series 5, Its weapons were a pneumatic forklift-style flipper, and a very small spinning disc at the rear. It originally used a chain drive, but the team switched this out for a more reliable geared transmission. The team also intended to use argon gas to power the flipper, but had to switch to conventional CO2 to comply with the Robot Wars rules. For Series 6, the team decided to build a vertical spinner as their new weapon after seeing 259's incredible performance at the qualifiers. Apart from the weapon change, the robot was virtually the same. Etymology The name Derek was chosen by team member Andy Groves, who chose the name at random, with even the team having no clear reason behind the name choice. Qualification Building of the robot began in 1999, and the robot first entered the Series 3 auditions. At the Series 3 auditions, Derek was still unfinished, and did not have a full armour shell. Despite this, it did well at the qualifiers, but the producers told the team they would have to finish the robot for them to be considered. The robot was damaged whilst driving in a pub car park shortly after the auditions, so the team failed to qualify for Series 3. Derek was developed over the next few months, but the team did not enter Series 4 because they were moving into a new factory at work. Derek lost its Series 5 qualifier against Bulldog Breed when its battery connector came loose and it lost all power, but was given a discretionary place because the judges felt it looked good and functioned well. Derek was also asked to take part at another live event, where it fought against Black Knight and S.M.I.D.S.Y. in one battle, and also fought DrillaKilla, which failed to qualify. Derek fought Killer Carrot 2 and Night Raider to qualify for Series 6. Derek won the battle, after Night Raider was quickly eliminated, and then it defeated Killer Carrot 2 on a Judges' decision after a pushing stalematehttp://dangerousvegetables.tripod.com/kc2/archive-5-7-02.htm. The conversion from Derek to Derek 2 took place after the qualifier battle had already been won. Robot History Series 5 In the first round of the Fifth Wars, Derek! faced a tough draw against eleventh seed - and returning Semi-Finalist - Dominator 2. Derek! was immediately rammed by the much quicker Dominator 2, who swung the axe, but missed by centimetres. After the initial pushing and shoving from both robots, Dominator 2 slid beneath Derek and drove around, meaning that the Derek! forklift weapon gouged the wooden floor. Dominator 2 then axed the internals of Derek! and pushed it into an arena side-wall, and reversed it into the wall where Derek! broke down completely. Derek! was hammered once again by Dominator 2 and once by House Robot Shunt. The Refbot closed in and counted out the immobilised Derek, eliminating it from the competition. After the battle, the team discovered that their battery connectors had overheated when the spinning disc hit the floor (when Derek drove up Dominator 2's wedge, which was cut from the televised version) and caused a surge of current; this ultimately led to its immobilisation. Despite its early exit from the competition, Derek! received the Best Engineered Robot Award at the end of the series. Series 6 Derek 2 fought in the final Heat of the Sixth Wars. In the first round, Derek 2 went up against long-time Robot Wars veteran Behemoth, former Extreme 1 Annihilator champion Disc-O-Inferno and series newcomer Tridentate. Derek 2 spun on the attack, but was soon flipped up and over by Behemoth. After it self-righted and landed back on its wheels, Derek 2 slammed into Behemoth's side, not doing any damage, before being hit side-on by Disc-O-Inferno, hitting the arena side wall and breaking down once again. Derek 2 was later counted out by Refbot and eliminated from the competition. Later on, it was placed on the Floor Flipper, along with the similarly immobile Tridentate, with both competitors being thrown across the arena simultaneously. Derek 2 was briefly taken into Sir Killalot's CPZ, before the latter eventually pushed it into the pit to join Behemoth and Tridentate. With this, Derek 2 was eliminated from the Sixth Wars along with Tridentate. Results |} |} Wins/Losses *Wins: 0 *Losses: 2 Series Record DerekConstruction.png|Derek during construction Derek construction.gif|Derek nearing completion DerekCraig.png|The Derek team with Craig Charles during the Sixth Wars Trivia *Derek won its Best Engineered Award, becoming the only robot to lose a fight to another robot but win an award where the winning robot was a nominee. *Both of Derek's battles featured a former semi-finalist who also finished as a runner-up in a side competition. *Both of Derek's battles featured Shunt as one of the House Robots and also involved it becoming immobilised and counted out by Refbot. *Killer Carrot 2, who Derek 2 beat in their Series 6 qualifier, appeared in the same heat as Derek 2 and both robots lost to Disc-O-Inferno in that heat. References External Links *The story of Derek, from the website of Carl Morris Honours Category:UK Series competitors Category:Best Engineered winners Category:Robots from Cheshire Category:Robots with Lifters Category:Robots with multiple appearances without winning a battle Category:Robots with Vertical Flywheels Category:Robots which debuted in Series 5 Category:Robots with alternate versions Category:Articles in need of rewriting